1886. } Ascent of the Volcano of Popocatepetl. 115 
deciduous trees, willows abounded, but few if any oaks. Through 
these forests, not very dense or continuous, pumas and wolves 
were said to roam. The insect life of the plains is scanty in the 
dry season, but in this zone bees and butterflies of different spe- 
cies visited the flowers. The zone of pines and willows was suc- 
ceeded by a belt of tall coniferous trees like a spruce with a fir- 
like habit; their slender shafts two to three feet in diameter (in one 
case of a tree felled with the ax, five feet) pierced the clear sky 
over perhaps 125 feet. This noble tree had very broad leaves 
and a deep red bark, like the red woods around the base of Mt. 
Shasta. This zone of red wood was succeeded by a belt of low 
short-leaved pines which grew shorter and more stunted until at 
half-past four we came to banks of snow lying on the summit of 
the grassy pass, the remnants of larger fields which had but lately 
disappeared. The air was now cool and even chilly, the ground 
was damp and often wet; here it was early spring, like our first of 
April in New England, too early for flowers; scattered plants, 
perhaps Alpine but quite unlike any we have seen in the Rocky 
mountains, were not yet in flower, and to add to the resemblance 
to a northern spring a flock of veritable robins flew among the 
pines ; they were lingering on the flanks of Popocatepetl before 
taking their final flight northward. 
The path to the ranch now left the Puebla trail and led us 
among the pines to the sheds where we were to spend the night. 
The rancho was reached at 5.40, and an hour still remaining be- 
fore dark, I walked to a ravine over piles of volcanic ash and lapilli 
to entomologize under fallen pine logs and the bark of stumps, 
finding lizards, beetles, spiders and myriopods quite unlike any 
forms yet seen in the zerra templada below, but with no trace of 
Alpine characters. 
The ranch was a deserted shed and furnace-house for roasting 
the crude sulphur formerly collected by the vo/caneros or peons 
at the bottom of the crater. 
Darkness gathered early about the ranch, but in the bright 
moonlight the massive, marble-like dome of Popocatepetl rose 
rectly above us. Our horses and mules were left to stand in 
the open air while we bivouacked in the shed, in the center of 
Which was a raised circular fireplace on which our guias made a 
fire of sticks and logs, the smoke and sparks passing up through 
a hole left in the middle of the roof. The Indians boiled their 
A 
